A Pristine Pessimist
by Screaming Faeries
Summary: Emmeline had always been a brilliant student at Hogwarts School, but she failed to see it in herself. It takes a particularly bad Alchemy Lesson, and a lecture from her friend Hestia to make her start trying to be more of an Optimist. Entry for ROUND 5 in the Quidditch Leages [Beater 2 for The Bellybats]


**A.N: **My entry for this round in the Quidditch Leagues. My team's character: Emmeline Vance. The prompts I chose: (quote) "no pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit" – Helen Keller. (Word) Frostbite, (word) Pristine. Word Count: 2,658

**Summary: **Emmeline had always been a brilliant student at Hogwarts School, but she failed to see it in herself. It takes a particularly bad Alchemy Lesson, and a lecture from her friend Hestia to make her start trying to be more of an Optimist. Entry for ROUND 5 in the Quidditch Leages [Beater 2 for The Bellybats]

* * *

oOo

I had always been interested in taking Alchemy as a subject later on in my school life, ever since my second year Potions class, when I had been reading ahead in my textbook. I often found myself reading ahead in lessons, much to the irritation of most teachers. My potions teacher, however, always laughed it off.

"Emmeline, Emmeline! I keep telling you over and over; stop reading ahead in my lessons!" Professor Slughorn laughed jovially. "You will be teaching the lesson for me, next!"

Every time he would say something similar like this, I would find myself blushing uncontrollably. It was never my desire to be a teacher at Hogwarts, but a professor thinking that I was advanced enough to teach a class was something that made me feel like I was glowing.

I had read a long extract in my potions book about a celebrated Alchemist, known as Dzou Yen. Yen was widely considered as one of the fathers of Chinese Science, and he was an Alchemist during the final years of the Zhou Dynasty, in the fourth century, B.C. I was also extremely interested in the noted French Alchemist, Nicholas Flamel, and how he managed to achieve two of the three primary alchemical goals. I was in awe at how Flamel had managed to create the Philosopher's Stone, basically, the Elixir of Life. I couldn't believe that just being an Alchemist could mean that you could manage to live to be six centuries old, which was how old Nicholas Flamel claimed to be.

I wasn't interested in living forever, or the transmutation of metals to turn them into silver or gold. Well, of course I was _interested_; I was interested as to how magic could _do_ such things. But I wasn't greedy – I didn't want to learn these things for myself, or to live forever and have riches beyond my wildest dreams, or anything like that. What initially drew me to Alchemy, besides the two Alchemists I had continued to read about in the library after my Potions lessons, was the language the chemical recipes would be in. Of course, they were often in English, but the lack of common words for chemical concepts, as well as the need for secrecy to avoid muggle persecution led Alchemists to borrow terms and symbols from biblical mythology, as well as astrology. I found that there was something strangely entertaining and fulfilling about breaking down these recipes into understandable terms, so that I could follow the recipe in front of me.

I guess you could say, I was enjoying the subject immensely. We were about three weeks into the subject (I had it once a week, and the lesson lasted about four hours). So far, the few class members that had taken Alchemy (there were four other students, including me), had only watched Professor Slughorn brew extremely delicate potions that he told us would be part of something alchemical at a later date. Other than that, we spent most of the lessons breaking down the recipes given in the huge old alchemical volume that Slughorn had brought up from the library, and rewriting them into understandable, very plain and simple terms.

Despite being in my seventh year, achieving an Outstanding in Potions the year before, _and _being accepted onto Slughorns Alchemy course, I still didn't believe I was any good at Potions. In fact, I struggled to believe I was any good at _any _of the subjects I did, even when my exam results came back perfect. If I had lost marks on anything, I always wanted to know where, and what happened, and how I could improve it to a perfect, pristine level. I remembered in my previous year, how jealous I had been of Severus Snape, who was a genius at Potions. While I, and the rest of our classmates were slaving over our cauldrons trying to make whatever we were brewing as immaculate as we could; Snape would be leaning over his Advanced Potions Textbook, doodling away – but yet his potions would be celebrated and marvelled at by Slughorn.

I wore a very green face of envy the majority of our shared Ravenclaw and Slytherin Potions lessons, last year. I knew Slughorn wanted Snape in the Alchemy class in his final year, but he was (thankfully for me) more interested in Defence against the Dark Arts.

To make my worries about being a complete and utter failure a lot worse, all three of the other Alchemy students were fellow Ravenclaws. I was terrified of not being as clever as my classmates. I constantly wondered whether I was misplaced in Ravenclaw, and if perhaps the Sorting Hat should have placed me in Hufflepuff. I felt like I had to prove myself, one hundred percent of the time.

In particular, I wanted to prove myself today. It was today that Slughorn was telling us that we were going to practice experimenting with creating a substance called Aqua Vitae.

"The preparation of Aqua Vitae, or as it is usually known, the 'Water of Life'. The preparation of Aqua Vitae was a popular experiment among many European Alchemists, once upon a time. Of course, Aqua Vitae is an _extremely _difficult substance to create, something that is a penance for even the most celebrated Alchemists to mix," Slughorn was saying as he waved his wand at the cupboards, making several different bottles and ingredients to come flying through the wooden doors, and settle neatly on our desks. "Now, with that in mind, please note that I don't expect _any _of you to successfully create Aqua Vitae. This is just an experiment, something to get you going on your careers to being most noble Alchemists!" Slughorn clapped his hands and took his seat at his desk. "Begin!"

Naturally, Slughorns instance that we didn't have to make the Aqua Vitae perfectly meant to me that I had to complete it without fault. It was in my nature to try and have everything utterly pristine and faultless all of the time. I simply _had _to make the Aqua Vitae completely right. I had to prove myself to the rest of my classmates that I was able and a brilliant Hogwarts student. I wanted, so desperately, to be like my mother – who had been a fellow student of Professor Slughorn. He talked of her fondly a lot – she was muggle-born, my mother, and she was a _remarkable_ student. She took almost every subject going, and she, also, took Alchemy in her final year. She never pursued a career in Alchemy, but she still knew her stuff. I wanted to be as good a student as my mother with a passion that overwhelmed me.

I was concentrating extraordinarily hard on the substance in my cauldron. I had followed the instructions on my revised and simplified recipe very slowly and carefully. After waiting forty-five minutes for what was currently brewing in the pot to set (as I had depicted from the recipe), I waved my wand in a slow, circular motion over the cauldron, three times, clockwise.

All of a sudden, the thick, bluish liquid in my cauldron started to bubble malevolently. I stepped back, feeling my face contorting in horror. I grabbed the parchment with my edited recipe on it. _Wave your wand in an anti-clockwise circular motion, three times. _I slapped my free palm against my cheek, feeling stupefied. I was so busy worrying about brewing it wrong, I hadn't paid proper attention to the recipe, and waved my wand the wrong way. I peered back over the rim of my cauldron, hoping and praying that the bubbling had subsided.

It was worse. The potion was beginning to harden, and a chill was emitting from it, so cold it was smoking. I pointed my wand at the substance, knowing that if I left it in there much longer it would probably freeze to the cauldron. There was no point hoping I could rectify my mistake; Potions was already complicated enough, but Alchemy was extremely precise. "_E-Evanes…sco…!_" I coughed, spluttering on the fumes that were beginning to seep from it. I knew that I had made a crucial mistake with the Vanishing Spell, but it was just too late.

The thick, now blue-green liquid shot out of the cauldron and suspended momentarily in mid-air, looking like some strange, gloopy, seawater-coloured cloud. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Professor Slughorn stand up quickly, reaching into his robes for his wand. Before he could act, however, my floating potion plummeted back into the cauldron.

It splashed out in all directions, but I caught a face full of it. I threw my arms over my face, but much too late. A white-hot burning sensation was beginning to sear across the area of my face that the potion had hit. I felt a scream rising in my throat, but when I opened my mouth to let it out, no words would come. My lips were swelling up, as was my nose. I felt some skin splitting, over the areas becoming most swollen. No blood spilled, as quite strangely, the blood in my face seemed to be frozen.

"Oh…my...Miss Vance, we had better get you to the hospital wing immediately!" Professor Slughorn waved his wand wordlessly around the classroom, and I figured he was vanishing the potions of the rest of the class. He ushered me along the corridors, keeping a hold on my shoulders, as the skin had swollen right over my eyes. I mumbled something incoherent, and felt tears seeping through the horrible, bloated lumps in my face. "There's a fair amount of bruising, very black," Professor Slughorn announced to Madam Pomfrey when we arrived at the hospital wing.

"Looks like a very magical and rapid acting Frostbite," Madam Pomfrey was saying, as she pushed me down onto a hospital bed. She summoned something from her office, and before long I felt something warm and thick being smeared over my face.

* * *

Several hours later, I woke up from what Madam Pomfrey had been a blissful and dreamless sleep. I was relieved to discover that I could see, and my airways were working. My face didn't feel swollen anymore, and it wasn't aching with the strange, freezing cold, yet burning sensation I had been feeling before. I could smell something revolting, and I soon discovered it was the thick, medicinal paste that Madam Pomfrey had been smearing hourly on my wounds.

Then, the scene from my earlier Alchemical disaster began to seep back into my memories. After reliving the lesson several times in my head, going over and over the mistakes I must have made, and how I can't have translated the recipe for Aqua Vitae correctly, I convinced myself I had to drop out of Alchemy. I was never going to be as clever as my mother. I just wasn't destined to be a great witch, like her. I reached onto the bedside table, finding a hand mirror, and held it up to my face.

I looked horrific. The paste was a lurid, acid green and was smeared across ninety percent of my face. The parts of skin I could still see were bright red and shiny at the surface. I was sure that even though the stuff Madam Pomfrey was medicating me with was no doubt working, I was going to be marred with ugly scars for the rest of my life. Embarrassment flooded me and pooled at the pit of my stomach. I was such a failure. My precise, pristine life was ebbing away at the seams.

I heard the door open at the other side of the hospital wing, and I placed the mirror back down on the bedside table. My good friend Hestia Jones was rushing through the long dormitory, narrowly avoiding Madam Pomfrey, and sat herself down at the chair next to my bed. She reached over and took my hands, her long black hair looking slightly frazzled, her green eyes wide and worried.

"I heard what happened. You look a lot better than how they say you looked when it happened!" She exclaimed, sounding thankful. Her nose wrinkled. "But by Merlin, that stuff _stinks_!"

"Oh, I'm so ugly!" I wailed, throwing my arms over my face. I forgot about the stinking paste, and pulled my arms back, wiping the majority of it off my arms and onto the bedding. "Hestia, I'm going to quit Alchemy."

"What?" Hestia looked puzzled. "But you love Alchemy. Plus, it took months for you to be accepted onto that subject. There were only four places. Why would you quit because of one mistake?"

"I completely failed! It was a total disaster, Hestia. You should have seen it!"

"You do realise that _no _one else managed to successfully create the Water of Life, don't you, Emmeline? It's impossible for your first try."

"No one managed to make it?"

"No, of course not!" Hestia sounded exasperated.

"Well. No one else managed to make theirs fly out of their cauldron. No one else is here in the hospital with third degree frozen burns or whateve—" I was cut off by Hestia smothering her laugh behind her hand. I wasn't trying to be funny, but I did laugh a little with Hestia at the situation. "It's just so embarrassing, Hestia. I don't want to be such a failure all the time. I want to be good at everything, like _really _good, not just average!" I sighed. "But it's just every time I seem to try it all just goes _wrong_."

"You're overly paranoid, Emmeline. You are a top student; everyone is bound to have a few mistakes every now and then, it completely _normal_. You _will _be a brilliant witch, just like your mother." She smiled encouragingly and patted my hand.

"That's _impossible_," I wailed bitterly.

"You seriously need an attitude adjustment, Emmeline! Try having a bit more optimism for a change. You need to start believing in impossible things, or you won't ever achieve the things you want to because you aren't trying hard enough. You need to grapple with the small and big struggle, that's just what life is about! You're never going to be perfect in this world, Emmeline, it's just never going to happen! You have to see through all the problems you encounter without being so bloody _negative _all the time. You're such a pessimist, you take the gloomiest and most miserable view about absolutely anything bad that happens, and whenever something goes really well or even just _right_, you never accept people telling you that you've done well or something. Seriously!" Hestia drew breath after this rant, and threw herself back in her chair, looking _extremely _exasperated.

I was slightly in shock. Hestia didn't often give me a lecture, just tried to keep me reassured when I was having a moment, but she had outdone herself this time. I went over every word she had said to me in my head, and then finally, when I was sure I understood properly, I retaliated. "I'm not pessimistic or negative, Hestia. I'm just being realistic. I'm _never _going to be as good as Mum."

Hestia threw her hands up in defeat, and stood up. "You see the absolute worst in all situations and you say you're being realistic? How is seeing everything negative being realistic?" She started to walk out of the hospital wing, holding her hand up behind her in goodbye. "Think about that attitude readjustment, Emmeline."

I watched her go, blinking, my mouth slightly hanging open. Maybe she was right.

"No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit," a voice spoke from my other side. I looked up; Madam Pomfrey was stood beside my bed. "That was something a celebrated Muggle once said. She's wise, your friend. Maybe you should listen to her."

Maybe they were all right.

oOo


End file.
